DENNINGTON co-captain Dustin Drew is disregarding his side’s form against Allansford this season as it chases glory in tomorrow’s one-day cup grand final.
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Allansford has twice defeated Dennington this season, the first in a Twenty20 game and more recently in a Warrnambool and District Cricket Association one-day fixture.
But with the Gators unable to consider star paceman Ben Boyd, who is unavailable because of commitments with the Victorian Country team, Drew is upbeat about his side’s chances of lifting the trophy.
“Everyone’s available. We’re at full strength,” he said.
But Drew promised different tactics from his side as it looks to post its first win of the season against the premiership favourite.
“It’s going to be a good game … two good sides. We’ve played them twice and we’ve been beaten convincingly both times. I’m not fazed by it. We will probably do things a bit different. We might change our batting line-up around.” But Drew said his side had winning momentum, even though it was interrupted by the Christmas break.
“We’ve been outplayed both times by them. I don’t know if you can take a lot out of them. They played well and we played bad, simple as that.
“These are the top-two sides playing off. They are the best side in it to date, clearly. But our side has a fair bit of belief. We were 6-40 against Merrivale chasing 140 and we got them seven down. Good sides win from any position.”
Drew said today’s round of T20 games would give his side a good hit-out.
Allansford skipper Nick Maddison said the Gators were yet to finalise their side for tomorrow’s showdown. He and coach Steve Blacker were yet to discuss who would take Boyd’s spot opening the bowling.
Filling that void has been the biggest issue confronting Allansford this week.
After three of the four division two semi-finalists were disqualified from the competition because they fielded ineligible players, Maddison said the Gators wanted to be sure who was eligible before making a decision.
“We want to get the best player we can to fill the role. I’m not sure who we can and can’t have.”
Maddison said the grand final build-up had been far from ideal after his side stole a semi-final victory against Port Fairy in the last over of the match three weeks ago.
“We had two one-dayers on a weekend, we’ve had a game of red-ball cricket (two day format) and now we have a T20 and then the one-day grand final. We will have played every format before we are playing on Sunday. But that’s the way it is, it’s no different for Dennington. Whoever wins it will have earned it.”
Maddison said he could understand his side’s favouritism but downplayed any advantage.
“I’m confident in our players and their ability but anything can happen.”
Tomorrow’s match at Davidson Oval starts at 12.30pm. Today marks the return of T20 competition.
